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On step 1.1, i meant 買っちゃ駄目 instead of 書いちゃ駄目

I'm planning to start doing this soon. Seen this method before had major success with Spanish in a comparable 2 month stint. Know any good Japanese rap, or rock/prog-metal similar to RageAgainstTheMachine/Tool? Enjoy that music the most.

>>142
Well for Rap, I mostly recommend Rip Slyme, M-Flo(most of his songs), and Kick the can crew.
They're pretty old, so it should be easy to download their songs, or if you prefer buying, you could get their albums for like 3 bucks

>>142
hope this helps. all types of nip music

>>145
A third of that stuff is sung in english, though

This could work well for learning the written language, but it doesn't seem quite as useful for learning the spoken language. Simply consuming nothing by Japanese media isn't really enough. Kid's media is really good, though, but somewhat hard to find if you live on the East coast. But one of my biggest hurdles, focusing on little else but the written media, is that I still didn't know enough of the spoken language to get by.

Total immersion is usually done after most of the basic stuff is covered, and is done in the form of actually going to Japan. You can't really substitute that. But if you don't even know kana yet then total immersion isn't going to do much for you. And it's not true immersion until all of your interactions with others are in Japanese as well as every sign on every shop you see, as well as every product in the stores, every piece of advertising, every television program... you can't really properly emulate that out of Japan.

>>147
ah, but luckily in the days of the internet we have ways of speaking with each other through skype and such. Pretty sure there are at least a few Japanese people where you live, try talking to them. Go to japanese restaurants, do something to talk.

I use immersion and my japanese friends say that i sound pretty natural.

With media, you could probably get Japanese channels for cheap (I get mine for $25 a month), importing is not that expensive. You can buy used DVDs for a few bucks and the shipping included is still cheaper than buying a new one in total. And these days, who doesn't torrent? Anime, manga, movies, dramas, just torrent that stuff.

Japanese channels are the best, your TV provider should probably have them. Then there are you Japanese commercials, movies, dramas, news, etc.

You don't necessarily need 100% immersion for it to work. You just need enough. Listen to some japanese radio podcasts on your phone/mp3 player when you're not at home. Bring some books to kill the time if you take the train or whatever.

Even in a total english environment, you can create a nearly total japanese environment. Nobody's making you read the billboards, read your books instead. Nobody forcing you to listen to the english all around you on the streets, get some headphones and japanese playing.

Might not be 100% but it's pretty damn close.

>>148
Well I'm not saying immersion is bad, surrounding yourself with as much as possible is a good thing if you can't actually go to Japan... if you've already got all the basic/intermediate stuff out of the way. If you don't know shit and you try any kind of lifestyle immersion, it would not only be unreasonably frustrating, but also unnecessary. You could go through the first level of something like RS to get the major basics and structure of the language down. Typically in traditional linguistics courses you learn a shitload of the language before attempting to study there.

And even if you surround yourself with as much of things at home, you still can't really emulate what it's like to live in Japan. When you go to work, people will still be talking to you in English, you'll see nothing but roadsigns in English. When you open your mail and read your bills and letters, they'll be in English. Of course, it's not an all or nothing thing, you can still learn it pretty well with other methods.

You shouldn't assume that everyone has the same resources as you, either. In my area the Asian population is 0.8% and all of those are Chinese. There are no real sushi restaurants, just mixed Asian buffets with all Chinese people who were born and raised in the US. Typically foreign-language television can only be gotten easily if you live pretty close to a major city.

>>149
you can do fine with a smartphone and headphones

>>145
Where the fuck is Number Girl? エレファントカシマシ?

>>149
not OP but a proponent of this method. It's not as unnecessarily frustrating as you think. Swapping your familiar smartphone, computer and videogames to a new language barely impedes your ability to use them. Instead it becomes it's own SRS where you get used to menu commands and some useful vocab. A week of having those three things in a new language will make a stay in a foreign country that much easier.

The frustration causes an need to learn the language, the immersion boosts the practice time to levels that actually let you learn.

Audio being on for long periods of time leads to major benefits. You need to get used to understanding the sounds of the language. Even if you magically knew all the words and grammar, you're going to have extreme trouble comprehending the words being said to you. Even if you knew what "Me gustaría aprender japonés" meant, it would fly past you and over your head anyway, leaving you unable to comprehend it. This is a necessary step.

When it comes to speaking I've heard positive reviews for both not speaking until you've had 2k hours of total immersion and trying to speak the first day, grammar trainwrecks and all.

>>197
You misunderstand, I'm not saying the technique is ineffective, I'm saying it's not necessary for a completely new learner. The "throw them into the deep end" approach might work, but there's other ways to learn how to swim that are a lot less traumatizing, or frustrating in the case of learning a language. You can try and drive a car with your feet, and if you really try you could be a great driver. Total immersion from day one could work, but a much better way is to learn the basics of the language, build up your vocabulary and kanji knowledge through daily speaking and writing study, then once you are confident enough that you might be able to walk through the streets of Tokyo and interact with people, you can do that or try and get as close as you can to the real thing at home.

That doesn't mean immersion can't be put in as part of the learning process, playing Japanese games, watching anime and live action Japanese shows/movies without subtitles, listening to Japanese music are all good things to do once you feel comfortable with it, but that's the key. Making it as enjoyable as you can and building confidence, not forcing yourself to learn the language out of necessity. That's how people locked up in Chinese prisons learn the language, but it probably wouldn't make many of them that enthusiastic about it.

But hey, if that's what you WANT to do, then go ahead and knock yourself out. Everyone learns a different way, after all. Some people might find it hard to get motivated to learn a language another way, so they frustrate themselves into forcing themselves to learn it. I'm just saying there could be better ways to learn it for others.

>>138
any tips for removing the boring of reaching literacy but not learning any language until you do?

Are there any resources for writing kana and kanji; you know, on paper? I'm going to start studing with a notebook and I don't want to have an ugly handwriting from the start.

>>214
learn them with an SRS and write the character out every time it comes up.

>>218
SRS?

BTW What is a more populated place to pratice with other studients?